A morning Digital NARM panel entitled "Data, Trends and Analysis" featured the conference's most bearish -- and likely most frank -- words concerning consumer behavior as paid music services compete with both legal and illegal free ones. A team of analysts, including Jupiter Research's Barry Parr, SoundThinking NY's Gwen Lipsky, M:Metrics' Jen Wu and BigChampagne's Eric Garland, discussed music piracy in ways that other panels barely acknowledged, presenting it as a realistic option for consumers who continue to steal music much more frequently than they buy it online.
But they didn't simply conclude that file-sharing will kill the music industry. Wu noted that sharing music on mobile phones is "an opportunity, not a threat," as friends introduce music to one another, while Lipsky added that consumers have also become distributors of content, through social networks and similar activities.
"A stealer of music may be along the path to paying for it," offered Lipsky, echoing Garland's statement that music pirates and music customers are often the same people. So much of the conference dealt with experimental economics, as music labels scramble to find ways to make money on goods increasingly seen as free. This panel seemed to concur that consumers will always choose the path of least resistance to acquire music. Whether that really means consumer behavior will force the market to give them free music remains uncertain, because convenience has its price too.
But as Garland put it, even music aficionados often choose not to pay for music, even if they consciously want to support artists.
"There used to be a cash register between the customer and the music, and now there's a tip jar." -- Paul Bonanos
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